Why You Aren’t Losing Weight

Lack of significant progress is the number one reason for abandoning a weight loss goal. Dieting involves a lot of planning and a considerable amount of effort. When there’s no reward at the end of that rainbow, most people quit.

Most people fall into three major categories if they’re dieting and exercising without success. Here’s why you aren’t losing weight and what you should change.

Eating More Than You Think

The calorie difference between a steady, consistent weight loss and hitting a plateau is not as wide as you’d think. Most dieters think because they’re restricting calories there’s a bit of a “calorie cushion”, when choosing meals and snacks.

Realistically, it only takes 200-300 extra calories each day to halt all weight loss progress. These are usually calories you pick up along the way that aren’t strictly counted or planned for.

Adding 25-50 calories worth of creamer in your coffee doesn’t seem like a big deal, and in isolation it isn’t. But at the end of each day when you add up all these incidental calories it can be shocking how much extra you’ve consumed.

A couple peanuts, a dose of mayo or ketchup. 25 calories here, 50 calories there — it doesn’t take long to reach that 200-300 calorie threshold that abruptly halts all weight loss.

Wrong Type Of Exercise

It’s heartbreaking to watch someone really, really try without the success they deserve. You’re up and moving. Off the couch, and trying your best to shed some pounds, but you aren’t losing weight.

When you’re trying to lose weight, the more efficient you are with your exercise and diet plan the more likely you are to succeed. The longer you have to diet, the more likely you are to abandon your goals and quit.

All exercise is good, it’s healthy and helpful. But when your specific goal is to lose body fat it’s important to prioritize activities that yield those specific results. Walking is awesome, but it’s also time consuming and considered a low calorie burn.

So you might spend an hour walking each day, but because of the low intensity your calorie burn will be relatively low.

Some people have few options with high intensity workouts, due to injury or age related issues. But if it’s an option, opt for a more intense workout. It’s not as easy, but it’s far more rewarding.

Whatever you choose to do, you should feel your heart racing and you should be out of breath. If it feels easy, like a light, leisurely activity it’s not going to help burn through body fat at a rapid rate.

Too Much Sugar

Mathematically, all calories are equal but what we’re learning is there’s a biological response and reaction to certain calories that make them different.

Studies have shown a drastic variation between dieters on a low sugar diet compared to a high sugar diet, and the reason behind the difference is the way our body utilizes sugar.

Of all the food we eat, sugar has perhaps the greatest influence on fat storage. You’d think that fat would have the highest influence on body fat, but it doesn’t. In a recent study, people on a high calorie, high fat diet actually lost more weight than those on a high sugar low calorie diet.

But why?

It’s the sugar. It triggers hormones directly related to fat storage. The more sugar you eat, in a short period of time, the more likely those calories are to be stored as body fat. What’s worse is sugar also raises insulin levels, which influences your ability to feel full.

So you’re constantly hungry, and the food you eat has a high probability of being stored as body fat.

But wait, there’s more! Your body starts this reaction when it anticipates sugar, making it hard to fool the process. So if you’re eating food that’s sweet, even if it’s artificial sweetener, it triggers a hormonal response as if you’re eating sugar.

Sugar found in nature, like whole fruit, is high in fiber helping negate this process, unlike the processed food most of us enjoy.

It’s really tempting to treat yourself at the end of the day to a piece of cake or a scoop of ice cream but those sugar dense foods can wreck an entire day of diligent dieting.

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